Super NES Classic Edition

[Sumez]

Really? As far as I can tell that's what they have been doing with the New Super Mario Bros. games (classic 2D SMB gameplay expanded with new moves, enemies, setpieces,e tc.), and when they made those everyone was raving that Nintendo were just being lazy and reusing assets and concepts rather than making something new.

[Turrican]

Oh the irony... After the CD-plagued slow PsOne version in 1999, the music-crippled, colour-watered GBA in 2006, and the iOS abomination of 2014, Final Fantasy VI is getting again a proper release.

[Sumez]

....but without the evade bug fixed, for sure.

[BulletMagnet]

....but without the evade bug fixed, for sure.

Vanish/X-Zone, how I've missed you so.

And you can't have a "cheap catcalls at FF6's expense" post without the phrase "son of a submariner", so there it is.

[soprano1]

Oh the irony... After the CD-plagued slow PsOne version in 1999, the music-crippled, colour-watered GBA in 2006, and the iOS abomination of 2014, Final Fantasy VI is getting again a proper release.

Allow me to laugh with you.

[BryanM]

Dredging another turd out of the toilet bowl >_<

Spoiler

Bad art, greased up pixels, non-tiling tiles. It's not like they don't know; the remakes of The After Years has good art.

that's what they have been doing with the New Super Mario Bros. games (classic 2D SMB gameplay expanded with new moves, enemies, setpieces,e tc.), and when they made those everyone was raving that Nintendo were just being lazy and reusing assets and concepts rather than making something new.

It was like a bazillion years between NSMB and SMW/Yoshi's Story. Just for a sequel! Madness.

[soprano1]

I wish those mobile/pc remakes had the same spritework as FFIV Complete Collection on PSP. I'm stuck playing the GBA versions with colour patches (music patches break some stuff for me, unfortunately).

[evil_ash_xero]

Not a lot of games, but the quality is pretty high.

Should have Chrono Trigger and DKC 2, I think.

[MX7]

Pretty good selection of games, and super cheap, especially when you consider the cost that some of these games go for now. Only games I would haved liked to have seen (Clock Tower, a Megaten, Seiken Densetsu 3 et al) don't have official translations so was never going to happen.

Also Chrono Trigger sucks.

[Turrican]

Thank god the SNES wasn't just this during the days... I mean, these twenty titles encapsulate the core offering, but the SNES was a little bit more open to dialogue with the rest of the world.

I think adding Sim City and Prince of Persia instead of those two Kirby would've have put the selection into a whole different context.

[Sumez]

Sim City and Prince of Persia are both inherently PC games that were ported to the SNES several years later. I think both are good ports, but they aren't really representative of the SNES
There are a lot of other really great games on the platform, not to mention a crazy abundance of amazing hidden gems, but for a selection of 21 games, these titles definitely do an almost perfect job at representing the Nintendo focused "core essence" of the platform as it is recognized by the mainstream audience.

[Turrican]

Sim City and Prince of Persia are both inherently PC games that were ported to the SNES several years later. I think both are good ports, but they aren't really representative of the SNES

But that's exaclty my point: thank god that the SNES back then didn't want to be itself, but was open to the outer world. And those ports have enough personality that they could enrich such a lineup.

About the hidden gems... Sure, in my 170+ cartridge collection there are lots of neat ones, but I felt these 20 were a good core offering. (unlike the NES mini).

The only drawback of this selection, is that it basically offers three gameplay styles: Platform, RPG, 3D racing/flying + Street Fighter II

[Turrican]

Looking at the 30 titles lineup of the NES mini:

Mario Bros.
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
BUBBLE BOBBLE
Galaga
PAC-MAN
GHOSTS‘N GOBLINS
GRADIUS
SUPER C

We have nine coin-op conversions, ranging from Micronics' mediocre Makaimura to the quite altered Super C. The message is, coin-op fun was an integral part of 8bit legacy, and you cannot be without it, although it's likely that these version aren't the one you'd want to return to. Still, it's 9 to only one on the SNES mini (Street Fighter II).
What's more, this lineup has Nintendo, Konami, Capcom, Tecmo, Technos, Taito, Namco and Square - for the Snes mini, half developers did the trick: Nintendo, Capcom, Konami and Square.

The rest:

Balloon Fight
Castlevania
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
DOUBLE DRAGON II: THE REVENGE
Dr. Mario
Excitebike
FINAL FANTASY
Ice Climber
Kid Icarus
Kirby’s Adventure
MEGA MAN 2
Metroid
NINJA GAIDEN
Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
StarTropics
Super Mario Bros
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Tecmo Bowl
The Legend of Zelda
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Genre-wise, other than the arcade classics, NES mini has platformers, RPGs, one puzzle, three sports games, shoot'em ups and beat'em ups. It's really unfortunate that the awesome Panel de Pon used a Tetris license in the west, it would have certainly filled the puzzle slot well.

[Sumez]

Even then I think the NES Classic "fails" at demonstrating the breadth of what the NES represents both as a historic development in video games, and as a video game platform in general, even more than the SNES classic does. There's no way you can truly "educate" anyone on what these platforms truly have to offer with a low-budget pack-in deal like this. Instead, all you can do is cater to people's nostalgia and what the platforms are famous for, and I think the SNES one does this even better than the NES one.

[Turrican]

Even then I think the NES Classic "fails" at demonstrating the breadth of what the NES represents both as a historic development in video games, and as a video game platform in general, even more than the SNES classic does. There's no way you can truly "educate" anyone on what these platforms truly have to offer with a low-budget pack-in deal like this. Instead, all you can do is cater to people's nostalgia and what the platforms are famous for, and I think the SNES one does this even better than the NES one.

Yes, I completely agree: it does that much better. And it's a testament to both systems, actually: the fact that you cannot possibly reduce NES to a collection like this, and the fact that on the other hand you basically can with the Snes, and they've done it... It's says a lot in both ways.

[Udderdude]

[BryanM]

Nice.

An alternate version for the "redpills" is a pile of crap composed of every console and arcade game from the 3DS on down, and when he takes off the glasses it's just a PC.

The amount of development that's gone into these old games is incredible at times. Not just translations. You've got things like Metroid: Rogue Dawn, and Pokémon: Anniversary Crystal, a community effort that includes additional source written from scratch. They're worthwhile games in their own right.

To be timelocked in the 90's is a gip, if you're an enthusiast.

[MX7]

I guess every time somebody eats at a coveted reataurant as opposed to eating the most nutritious constituant ingredients alone at home they're being brainwashed by reptillians. Extrinsics and by extension pseudoindividualisation are important. Adorno may baulk, but I know the SNES mini is going to go down a lot better as post-pub entertainment than clicking on SNES9X.

[Turrican]

It's important to keep the two planes separate: on one hand, community effort into public emulation is 1) unparallelled when it comes to quality 2) it's what companies famously resort to, because they too lose their archives and do not keep memory of their own history. So they the real heroes here are preservationists in the emulator scene. No contest. On the other hand, this Snes mini stuff is, like it or nor, an official nintendo product and as such, an official release of these games. As a stand-alone dedicated console, It's kinda a successor-in-line of the Color TV-Game 15.

[mvsfan]

anyone know why they arent taking preorders in the US yet?

[bigbadboaz]

I don't think anybody knows. They haven't really said much and nobody will ever really understand how this company makes decisions.

No guarantee they even will until they say otherwise. They've already established that all they have to do is pump out one underwhelming production run and watch the whole fucking world lose its shit.

[soprano1]

nobody will ever really understand how this company makes decisions.

Quoted for truth, unfortunately.

[BrianC]

It's important to keep the two planes separate: on one hand, community effort into public emulation is 1) unparallelled when it comes to quality 2) it's what companies famously resort to, because they too lose their archives and do not keep memory of their own history

I'm really perplexed by that myself since Nintendo made an accurate remake of their Ball Game and Watch handheld (and last I heard still had some of their Game and Watch staff around), something that can't be easily emulated. Some of Game & Watch the recreations in collections have been accurate, as well. That business with the Donkey Kong "Original" VC with added animations and the pie level that was only available as a promotion was also a bit shady. It was just a simple DK hack that changes nothing with the original levels. I was under the impression that their G&W games and most of their console stuff were kept in archives, but the SMB ROM thing is perplexing (I'm under the impression that Nintendo licensed the emulation to a third party since it did seem to drop in quality with the WiiU).

It's too bad Nintendo's arcade stuff seems to be in license limbo, though it's hard to tell. They did allow RARE to make a port of the original DK in DK64 and there have been ports/remakes of Sherriff, Popeye (by Namco for mobile phones, oddly enough), and Mario Bros (with most of the Super Mario Advance games, as well as Mario and Luigi), but nothing emulated or entirely arcade accurate. A pity since many of their AC versions are superior to the NES ports and Arm Wrestling never officially made it home.

[Sumez]

How are Nintendo's arcade games in license limbo?

[BrianC]

How are Nintendo's arcade games in license limbo?

DK was programmed by a company named Ikegami Tsushinki Co., Ltd. and DK Jr. (and possibly others) used code from it without permission. I also used non specific wording on purpose and didn't say for sure that they are in limbo.

[Sumez]

It's pretty common for Nintendo to use contracted programmers like that, it would be very unlike them to leave them with any kinds of rights to the code.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Do you think someday we'll see an official box like this where Nintendo actually allows you to load ROMs with the idea being "hey here are licensed preloaded games and you are authorized to upload ROMs for any cartridges you physically own" sort of thing?

We'd have access (assuming the emulation's good) to the whole breadth of the system, romhacks, etc, while still being able to support an official company release.

[Sumez]

Haha no

[BrianC]

It's pretty common for Nintendo to use contracted programmers like that, it would be very unlike them to leave them with any kinds of rights to the code.

In this case the company did have rights to the code and sued Nintendo over it.

[BryanM]

Do you think someday we'll see an official box like this where Nintendo actually allows you to load ROMs with the idea being "hey here are licensed preloaded games and you are authorized to upload ROMs for any cartridges you physically own" sort of thing?

We'd have access (assuming the emulation's good) to the whole breadth of the system, romhacks, etc, while still being able to support an official company release.

haha no

It's the Beanie Baby Business Model, here on out